why do women marry older men and is this a feminist issue?

[IceBeing]

I was thinking about this mostly from the point of view of childcare burden disproportionately falling on women...

If you marry and older man, then the chances are higher that you will be the lower earner when the childcare decision gets made.

About 75-85 % of long term relationships have a younger female partner...so this might account for the bulk of gender bias in primary carer.

So is this an issue worth thinking about, and what might be done to make older female relationships more normal?

I think you're over- thinking it. Off the top of my head I can't think of any couples amongst friends and family where there is more than 5 years difference. Most are less and the woman isn't necessarily the younger.

The average age gap on first
Marriage is dropping all the time and is now down to about 2 years older for men.

If things are finely balanced financially then I think it does contribute to the difference post kidsq

Those couple of years can make a big difference. There are two years between my parents and they were both doctors. Because of the way you progress through the profession my father was inevitably earning more than my mother by the time children came and she wouldn't ever have been able to catch up at that stage

In my case, the reason why is simple - love!

We have a 22 year age gap, he was the higher earner for all of the time we were together (20+ years), but is now retired.

So, he now does childcare & home stuff, I work FT. DD is in primary school.

The switch hasn't always been easy for either of us, but we are getting there!

Obviously that was thirty years ago, but even now dp is younger than me but because he has been working for two years longer (for various reasons) he earns more than me. It's obviously not a problem that people who have spent more time working to be earning more than those who haven't, but if the former is most likely the man of a heterosexual couple and the latter the woman, then it will have an effect on the choices made when it comes to childcare

There's still an average age gap on both marriage and on having a first child, and I'm sure it does make a difference - in my case MrNC is 7 years older, which means he had a career by the time I started mine (and could support me through both PhD and illness). We worked out that if I lost or quit my job whiile the child-now-children were in nursery, it would make little difference financially. If he did, we would be on the edge of coping.

So I think a move like in the Netherlands where all public jobs are max 4 days a week would make a big difference - many women after kids don't feel physically up to full time either.

My mum is older than my dad and people thought that very weird - same age gap now would invite way less comment. I think couples mainly marrying / having kids later will help a lot - quite simply, when social norms were for girls age 17 to consider a life partner, no wonder the malewas older - teenage boys just aren't as mature as girls until at least age 18 or more, and women get used to looking at men a bit older - probably wears off by mid-20s.

Ideally we'd both work a 3-day week, but he's had enough grief going down to 4 days and at least his work is very flexible. We've both rather scuppered career prospects though - financially we'd be better off one of us having a full time promotion and the other having less work.

I am surprised by those stats. The majority of couples I know have partners of the same age. It probably does make a difference.

Dh has a pin money job, and I am the breadwinner. He did most of the baby care from birth with 2 of ours. Dh knew from our teens he would be taking a supportive role and I would be concentrating on my career.

It is absolute rubbish that teenage boys aren't mature enough. Some might not be, but a lot of my friends met their dhs at that age.

The age of first marriage is in general going up as well, giving more time to iron out differences.

If a woman does not want to be primary carer, then it should be discussed before marriage. Dh knew from the outset I would never consider sah, even though we have/plan to have a large family. As this had been discussed pre-marriage when we did have children there were no surprises.

that sounds like the default assumption SHOULD be that the woman will be the primary carer yummyfairycake, unless she specifies otherwise with sufficient notice

i mean yes, these things should be discussed and considered at the earliest opportunity, it's what people who plan to have children do in a healthy and equal relationship

but it did sound rather as though a man can and should assume that the woman will be primary carer unless she gives sufficient notice otherwise

Looking around me I also see most marriages being much more even age-wise (DP and I, my siblings and their partners, all within a year of each other)

I think it is more even that way - although in every partnership I know it's been the woman still who's stayed home, even though each of those women is degree educated. In that, I think it's more dependent on the age of first child - I'm seeing the younger women more OK about leaving their job to look after the kids, and the older ones (like me) struggling more and chomping at the bit to get back to work.

I agree with Citrus though - the sooner people can realistically do a three day week each the better.

Not really I wouldn't be a default carer. Dh has completed my maternity leaves for me twice from birth. He knew I had lots of ambitions, and would be like that. It was decided in our teenage years that he would be in that role. There are a lot of people that think women should do it, and then just drift in to things. It is seen a lot on here with women saying I took a year off then drifted in to it. A surprising number of couples don't sort these issues out in the dating stage.

I do agree with you that it is ridiculous that it as a woman you will do it just because you gave birth. What is wrong with dads doing all the maternity leave and mums working?

So some statistics here (for the US unfortunately) en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_disparity_in_sexual_relationships

shows that woman older than man is about 13%,
approximately the same is about 33%
man older than woman is about 54%

Apparently around 25% of relationships in the UK now have the woman as the older partner.

It is definitely trending in the right direction from a feminist perspective though!

I am within a year of my DH and it was random which one of us had the better paid job when child birth occurred. As it happened he is much more naturally nurturing than I am, and I had the higher paid job. So we lucked out there.

DH and I didn't discuss when we were dating. We discussed when I was pregnant.

It's quite shocking when you see the difference between the number of women who marry men 2-3 years older and the number who marry men 2-3 years younger. That kind of age gap shouldn't make a difference either way so why is it so much more acceptable to marry a man 2 years older than 2 years younger?

I've only ever dated one person older than me and he was only a few months older. I think every other person I've gone out with has been younger than me and in every case I got comments about having a toyboy.

DH and I share the childcare, in our case I didn't want children and it's only because he was so keen to have kids and be a really active father that we did. Going back to work wasn't an issue, we both went part time but both have good jobs so could afford the childcare. I think the fact that women are encouraged into lower paid careers has more of an impact than age of your DH when deciding to return to work, if you are 30 and in a professional role then you are probably earning enough to cover childcare costs unless you are in London.

It's an interesting one, isn't it? Oddly, I have occasionally noticed people who judge slightly when women are with younger men. My granny (long gone, bless her) used to comment a bit. I think for her it was subconsciously tied up with the idea that the man ought to be the leader, the dominant one, and that comes naturally with being older.

However, I was chatting to a very successful female professor the other day, and she explained (very sweetly) how her husband had been 20 years older, and when they had children, he felt it was her 'turn' to get the time on her career, which is how she ended up as a prof when most of her female colleagues who had children don't. I thought that was quite hopeful, as she's near retirement age, so some men have been doing the decent thing for a very long time, and there are good examples to follow.

I guess one reason is that older men are 'mature' and older women are 'past it'?

So yes, it's a feminist issue.

Interesting.

I married a man 13 years my senior. We got together when I was 24 and he was 37. I was at the beginning of my career, he was very much established and earning four times what I did.

What kept that inequality (of status and earning power) going wasnt our relationship, but the fact that I had a child at 27. That was what fucked my career, really. I didnt really understand at that time that climbing the career ladder with a baby wasnt going to be do-able in my field.

If I had waited until I was 35 to have a baby, and had been very much established in my career, I dont think the age difference in our relationship would have had any relevance.

In wider terms, yes of course there is a double standard with the older woman/younger man thing and I suppose that is a feminist issue. I'm 38 now and cannot imagine ever finding a 24 yr old attractive beyond pure aesthetics. I'm pretty sure my youthful good looks were what initially attracted DH, too, if I am honest...although obviously my amazing personality was what hooked him .

My father in law is just a couple of years older than my dh. This kind of thing isn't really strange nowadays. I would go out with a younger man, but I wouldn't be in a relationship with a significantly older man. I would feel we would be less likely to have anything in common

DH is 10 years my senior and, while we are very happy and he does work with me to keep our partnership as equal as we can, i think it can be a feminist issue.

I was 21 when we started going out, he had just turned 32. Now when I look back, I think I was a baby! But I thought I was mature for my age and that I had lived a lot already. I was also a student and continued to be for quite some time as I went on to complete a PhD. So there were times when I was bringing in very little money (when my stipend ended and I still had some work to do on my thesis especially). We don't have a joint account but I pay him monthly by standing order for our bills, split percentage-wise according to what we earn. When I was earning very little, he paid the bills and I was extremely lucky that we could do that. But I felt I had lost so much independence and I hated it. I just wouldn't ask him for money, though he would have given it to me, so I was getting by on about a tenner a week for travel, lunch etc. If I didn't have an earning partner, I would have been entitled to JSA but as things stood, I wasn't. It made me realise that, if things ever went wrong between us (though I doubt they will), I would be completely beholden to him and would struggle to leave if I had no income of my own.

When I was younger, I used to agree to things that I never would now. When I was 21, his ex came over from abroad and he didn't want to hurt her so asked if I could stay away for the duration of her trip (just a weekend). I was so young and this was my first 'proper' relationship, I agreed to it but was so upset. I would fucking blow the house down if he dared suggest that to the now 29 year old me. One evening when I was about 23, we had a fight and he demanded I get out of his house and go back to my mum and dad's on the other side of the city. As I had recent moved back in with them to save money, I had nowhere else to go so I had to do it. I felt utterly humiliated.

We've spoken about these events since and he recognises how much he hurt me. Our communication is a lot better. I do wonder, though, if I hadn't been so young and unsure of myself and in love with a man who was more experienced and older than me, would I have stayed?

It sounds awful, but I'm glad I did because our relationship is very good now. I am earning enough to support myself if necessary and he knows I don take any shit. The problems we've had, I truly believe, have led to better understanding, empathy and communication between us.

It's not really a problem with the age difference though is it? it's the fact that the way our "careers system" (for want of a better phrase) is built still reflects the old stereotypical pattern where a man would establish himself over 20 or so years and then when he could support a family he found himself a (usually younger) wife. The trouble is of course that for women those 20 years coincide with their fertile years, so if they want to have children and a career they are likely in many professions to be pushing ahead with both at the same time, add to that the expectation (which is still there at society level) that they should take on the greater burden of childcare and related household duties, so many are very stretched.

Which is why the working world needs to continue to become more diverse and flexible, so having children doesn't disproportionately affect women's careers, parents who have taken time out from work to care for children and then want to go back to paid employment shouldn't be written off as having no skills, it should become more normalised for men to take on more of the child-related work so there aren't assumptions about what an female employee of childbearing age is going to do/be once she has children etc

There needs to be more of a holistic whole-life view of careers and family life at a society level.